Who is afraid of the big bad….

Bouncing down my backstairs and flying out the door for my daily walk,when I- STOP- dead in my tracks…
There it was
silent and still
furry and timid-
Perilously perched on the deck post .
Together we froze, he and I.
My heart was beating in my throat so hard and fast. There I was face to face, within two feet of this monster, I was gripped with terror. Who will flinch first? Me or that scary furry beast staring at me. Was he as frightened as I? I doubt it. My anxiety increased with each terse twitch of his furry tail. Eyeing me, ready to pounce–

Within seconds, I was brought back to my paper route where this fear all began. I had few elderly customers that had a fondness for feeding these furry creatures hence a LARGE population of rodents running rampant unafraid of little papergirls. So there I was delivering papers with my best friend, I bent down to put the daily scribe into the customer’s milk bin and froze- 2 inches from me was this squirrel– inching closer and closer. I rigidly stood there, left arm in a cast up to my shoulder, paper sack slung over the other shoulder and this THING started to climb up my leg! I looked over to my friend who was standing at the end of the sidewalk– half in shock and half smirking as I screamed, “Get it off”! Needless to say she was laughing so hard that she could not do anything… I finally shook the furry non-friend off of me and promptly ran to my next house. There was one other incident with a squirrel actually colliding with me as a I ran through my deliveries–I swear it tried to bite me. Every day I delivered papers after that was very stressful for me– there must have been a hundred if not a thousand 🙂 squirrels in the trees just waiting and squeaking for that poor little papergirl they could terrorize.

And now these hairy things are running amuck around my home — on my deck and front porch. They scurry around with neighborly peanuts in their mouths and defiantly stare at me as if they know they have the upper hand with me. Oh how they mock me from the tree branches–

I have a few friends(and now more) that know of my secret(not so secret) fear of the these creatures– one friend actually bought her daughter a chinchilla for a pet. Guess who was the first person they called to come over to see it? Why do we all find humor in each other’s absurd fears? or idiosyncracies of our personality? Deep down inside I know being afraid of squirrels is odd and I do laugh at myself(you have to). We all have them– those absurd fears or our silly(or not so silly) hang ups or routines we have to do to keep ourselves in “proper order”.( You know you do-admit it!)

I enjoyed the following because there is a certain comfort in seeing others who are as ridiculous as I am, lending a certain “normalcy” to the lunacy so to speak :0)

Something Missing by Matthew Dicks. New Adult Fiction FIC DIC. This is a story of Martin Railsback Jr an obsessive-compulsive criminal whose every waking moment is packed with finicky clockwork ritual–The only problem is that, after years of undetected crime, he’s recently begun to think of himself as a sort of guardian angel who watches over his victims. Something Missing is a hilarious novel about a man used to planning every second of his life who is suddenly forced to confront chaos and spontaneity.

Along Came Polly DVD COMEDY ALO Ben Stiller plays a very tense and uptight risk assessor for an insurance company in this comedy. His character is absolutely afraid to do anything that increases his risk of dying!

What About Bob DVD COMEDY WHA A successful psychiatrist loses his mind after one of his most dependent patients, a highly manipulative obsessive-compulsive, tracks him down during his family vacation. Bill Murray is an absolutely hysterical man with a list of phobias and hang ups in this film.

Wizard of Oz J DVD WIZ A classic movie filled with characters that all have their own personal fears to overcome.(sadly none are afraid of squirrels)

Conspiracy Theory DVD MYST/SUSP CON Mel Gibson plays a paranoid in love with a woman he observes from afar. Gibson’s character, Jerry Fletcher is an outspoken critic of the government. He has conspiracy theories for everything, from aliens to political assassinations; he is obsessive about the government being big brother watching.

Another movie I enjoyed is the Royal Tenenbaums. It is a flick about a family full of eccentric genius’ as they try to come together in the wake of their father’s psuedo- illness. This film is filled with stars such as- Gene Hackman, Ben Styler, Danny Glover, Luke and Owen Wilson.

The other day, I was walking down the street and I was watching this squirrel on the side of the road. I noticed a car coming far off, and I’m wondering what he’s going to do because he looked like he wanted to cross. Well, he sat there as if waiting for the car, and wouldn’t you know it as the car approached he ran out in front of it and then quickly dodged back! I couldn’t believe it.

The squirrels in our yard had me completely trained. The red squirrels (one of my favorite of all creatures) would perch on the woodpile every morning and stare into my office, waiting for me to come out and give them their daily ration of sunflower seeds… my guilt overcoming my laziness. The gray squirrels were much more aggressive … one would literally bang on my office door to remind me that I did not feed him. Finally, in early summer, after every gray single squirrel in Algonquin State Forest descended on the yard and pushed my little red buddies away, I abandoned the feeding … and they all went to my neighbors house… heh heh heh … but winter’s coming, and I’ll be right back there feeding them, properly conditioned (and facilitated by Italian and Catholic guilt, the double whammy…). Great blog!!!